Memorial Service for Bruce Hanna is May 9

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 9, for Bruce Hanna, former director of Old Dominion University's Pretlow Planetarium and astronomy instructor, who died April 24, 2009.

The service will be in the Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home, Tidewater Drive Chapel, in Norfolk, with a reception to follow at the Algonquin House in Norfolk. Condolences may be sent to the family at www.hollomon-brown.com. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Diabetes Association.

Hanna, who served more than three decades as planetarium director, had retired in December. He came to ODU in the early 1970s to pursue a master's degree in science education. In 1974, as a teaching assistant, he took the reins of the planetarium from the late C.S. Sherwood, professor of geophysical sciences. Hanna joined the faculty in 1976.

Survivors include his two daughters, Lee Hanna of Philadelphia and Tracy Hanna of Virginia Beach; his sister, Barbara Joyner of Lexington, Va.; and his new granddaughter, Gabrielle, of Virginia Beach.